6. Labor: The Stymphalian Birds

6. Labor: The Stymphalian Birds

As the sixth labor, Heracles was ordered to drive away the Stymphalian Birds. The Stymphalian Birds were cannibalistic creatures with bronze beaks, claws and feathers so sharp that they hurled them like arrows at their enemies. They were dwelling in the shores of a lake called Stymphalia, in Arcadia, inside a deep forest to hide themselves from the beasts.

So when Heracles was wondering how to chase them away, the wise goddess Athena came to help and gave the hero bronze castanets, forged in the workshop of the blacksmith Hephaestus. Heracles rattled the castanets up on a hill by the lake and the birds, unable to endure the noise, flew up in fright, making it quite easy for the hero to exterminate them with his arrows. According to a myth, some of the birds were able to escape, but they had become so much terrified that they flew a long way and never appeared again in the district.